Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

They tell us that they recalled parliament on 15 December. It was supposedly to come up with a plan on energy prices. But the simple fact is that these measures are hopelessly inadequate. If we just look at rising interest rates, on a typical mortgage a family is paying $18,000 more a year. You would need to have 1,400 scripts a year for the savings to outweigh your extra mortgage costs, and obviously almost nobody is going to be in that position.

Of course, child care is important for Australians with young children, but the relief won't start until July and, for millions and millions of Australians, they are not at a stage of life where that is going to be providing assistance.

What is the plan to deal with rising interest rates? It is increasingly clear that this government does not have a plan beyond repeatedly saying, 'The independent Reserve Bank of Australia.' Who says that? The Treasurer. The man who appoints the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia constantly says, 'The independent Reserve Bank of Australia.'

This government is in disarray in how they are dealing with the challenge of repeatedly rising interest rates. Last week the Assistant Treasurer had this to say about interest rate rises. He said he was hoping that 'if this is not the last it's near the last of the rate increases'. Hope is not a plan, and it's clearly not a very well-founded hope because, regardless of what the Assistant Treasurer in his bumbling fashion might say, if you ask the man who's actually got responsibility, together with the board, he says that further increases in interest rates will be needed over the months ahead. So we have this bumbling Assistant Treasurer saying that he is hoping it is near the last of the rate increases. What is very clear is that this government simply does not have a plan to deal with rising interest rates.

That's before we turn to the pressing problem of energy. On 97 occasions before the election, the Prime Minister promised that energy bills would be lower by $275. He arrived at that conclusion based upon modelling work done by the member for McMahon. What a distinguished track record he has had in this place! He's the same genius who came up with Fuel Watch, Grocery Watch and the Malaysian solution, and the Labor Party turned to him and said, 'Tell us what to do about energy prices.' He came up with dodgy modelling and, on the basis of that, on 97 occasions the Prime Minister told the Australian people before the election that energy bills would go down by $275. Exactly the opposite has been happening. As bills have been rocketing around the country, their solution was an urgent parliamentary recall in the middle of December. Supposedly the details were going to be finalised by the National Cabinet by March. We've now learned that's not going to happen until the budget in May. The New South Wales Treasurer, repeatedly quoted, I must say, by the Prime Minister, has come out and said the money promised by the Commonwealth has not yet materialised.

Let's be clear. Even if this relief is ever delivered, the simple fact is that Australians' power bills will be going up by hundreds of billions of dollars, even after whatever the government manages to deliver, not down by the $275 which the Prime Minister repeatedly promised.

Perhaps the single most troubling aspect of all of this is that, in the face of these pressing problems, which are urgently engaging Australian families around the kitchen table all across our country, it is abundantly clear that dealing with these problems is not the central focus of this government. They have their mind on other things. Indeed, the man who is supposed to be right at the centre of the response—instead of focusing on how he can drive down interest rates, how he can get inflation under control—has been writing 6,000-word essays quoting Greek philosophers. He does want us to know that he's really clever. He reads weighty books like Jared Diamond's Upheaval; he name checks cool leftie economists like Mariana Mazzucato. He's au fait with Nouriel Roubini's gloomy predictions. He has fascinating conversations with people like the Canadian central banker Mark Carney. He wants us to know that he's a big Labor thinker, because what big Labor thinkers spend their summers doing is writing essays for the Monthly. We know that because he pointed it out in the very essay. He said, in case we didn't know, that Kevin Rudd wrote one in February 2009, and that other big Labor thinker, also from Queensland, Wayne Swan, wrote one in March 2012, and Jim's very much in the same tradition—a big Labor thinker, pondering these complex issues over Christmas—

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